The rise of the groupthink podcast

A long tradition in the Liddle household on a Saturday morning is to read aloud sections from the Guardian Weekend magazine and fall about laughing. It is of course the sole reason we buy the paper. Two regular features in particular create a quite enormous amount of merriment. The first, Blind Date, is where two of the paper’s readers are brought together to see if they fancy copping off with each other (they almost never do, for good reason).

It’s not a bad idea, to be honest – but, oh, Christ help us… the people. Epicene smirking hipsters; growling diesel dykes; ingenuous gayers with multiple piercings; ugly, embittered, hummus-breathed third-sector workers; rancid, angry, middle-aged harridans of either gender; smug, dim-witted perpetual students. If you are ever tempted to vote for Sir Keir, just read a few of the Guardian’s Blind Date columns and remember that the people within will be deliriously happy if Starmer wins. I don’t want those people to be happy, ever.

The other feature which appeals is of a similar kind. It is called ‘Dining across the divide: can breaking bread help bridge political differences?’ Once again, two people are brought together and the thing here is that each week these individuals identify at the start of each column that they support the Labour party. So there is no divide. None at all. The whole point of the feature is defunct because they couldn’t bear to have someone with a different viewpoint take part.

This false divide stuff is becoming very popular on the liberal left. You can, if you wish, choose to listen to a whole host of podcasts posited on the notion that the two participants are politically averse, when actually they agree about pretty much everything.